Februaruy 2011: The Arab Revolutions and Human Rights

A little Respect, Please
by Christina Cerna
“It was not just the humiliation of that one slap that made her son commit suicide. The slap was the culmination, symbolic of all the humiliations and indignities Mohamed and so many others have experienced daily. The humiliation of not being able to provide for themselves and their families and of not having basic human rights gave way to anger and frustration.”

“Although the precipitating event is rarely predictable, these kinds of events are almost never random…Tunisia and Egypt are not the exceptions, but rather, illustrate the rule: step on your people and one day they will step on you.”

“It is said that Franklin Delano Roosevelt defended the US tendency to support dictators by remarking, ‘He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch’. The recent events in Tunisia and Egypt indicate that almost seventy years later, this unfortunate phrase seems to continue to guide US foreign policy.”

“Yet while analysts decry the failure of governance in the Arab world, and while countries such as the United States of America, France, and Great Britain self-confidently reinterpret their foreign policies to reassure observers that in fact they were never acting in support of despotic regimes, in Africa many diplomats and analysts are quietly elated. Indeed, many whisper quietly in the corridors of power that the change which commenced in Southern Africa has finally reached the Northern regions of the continent.”